Microsoft Plus! (1995) 42 Utility Novelty Windows

Microsoft Plus! was an add-on package to Windows that added desktop themes, screen savers, sound effects, power-toys, and other assorted goodies for the home user. Plus! 95 also included Internet Explorer 1.0, which was not included in all Windows 95 distributions.

• 95
• 98

After Dark (1989) 38 Novelty Windows

After Dark, from Berkeley Systems, Inc, is a set of entertaining screen savers for Mac and Windows. After Dark for Windows started off as "Magic Screen Saver" for Windows 2.x. After Dark was most famous for its "Flying Toasters" screen saver. Afterdark was very popular on both the early Macintosh computers and Windows 3.0, as neither included any kind of screen saver or screen blanker that would help prevent screen burn-in.

• Magic ScreenSaver
• 1.0 for Windows
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• Tenth Anniversary

Encarta (1993) 20 Reference Windows MacOS

Microsoft Encarta was a home oriented interactive encyclopedia that was often sold with new OEM machines. Unlike a paper encyclopedia, Encarta took full advantage of being on a computer, with updates from the Internet, sound clips and movies, interactive charts and games, and good navigation.

• 1994
• 1995
• 1996
• 1997
• 1998
• 1999

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 19 Graphics Publishing Novelty Windows

Instant Artist, later renamed to Print Artist, is a greeting card and sign creation program that uses vectorized graphics. It was created by The Pixellite Group, the original authors of The Print Shop, and published in 1992 by Autodesk. It was later sold by Sierra On-line. It features a high quality set of generic reusable clip art. The clip art uses vector based technology that was also used in BannerMania.

• 1.0
• 2.0
• 3.0
• 4.0
• 6.0
• 8.0

Microsoft BOB (1995) 11 Novelty Windows

Microsoft BOB is a Windows 3.1 graphical shell intended for novice users. It presents your desktop as a series of "rooms" with various selectable objects, and assists you with a friendly animated guide. It features vector based graphics that scale to any size or resolution screen, supports user profiles, and includes rudimentary editor, calendar, address book, and checking programs. It was created as a response to Packard Bell Navigator and is somewhat comparable to Apple At Ease and 3DNA.

• 1.00
• 1.00a

American Heritage Electronic Dictionary (1991) 10 Reference Windows

Houghton Mifflin American Heritage Electronic Dictionary is a resident background program that gives you instant searchable access to an entire dictionary.

• 1.x (Win)

Microsoft Greetings (1997) 10 Publishing Novelty Windows

Microsoft Greetings is a greeting card maker for Microsoft Windows 9x/NT. It was made in conjunction with Hallmark.

• Workshop 2.0
• 99 (3.0)

Microsoft Scenes (1993) 9 Novelty Windows

Microsoft Scenes is a screen saver that displays a slide show of photographs. It was packaged in several varieties with different themed galleries.

• 1.0
• 2.0

Bookshelf (1987) 8 Reference Windows

Microsoft Bookshelf is a CD-ROM based multimedia reference tool from Microsoft, including a dictionary, thesaurus, quotations, atlas, and other types of references. Some versions were included and integrated with Microsoft Office, albeit sometimes stripped down.

• 92
• 94
• 95
• 98
• 2000

Microsoft Dangerous Creatures (1994) 8 Reference Novelty Windows

Multimedia title from the Microsoft Home series about venomous and dangerous animals, such as spiders, snakes, fish, etc. from around the world. Runs on Windows 3.1 or later.

• 1.0

Microsoft Fine Artist (1994) 7 Graphics Novelty Windows MacOS

Microsoft Fine Artist is a dumbed down Microsoft Bob-like drawing program targeted at children. It was sold alongside, and later bundled with, a word processor called Microsoft Creative Writer.

• 1.x

Catz (1996) 6 Novelty Windows

Catz, from PF Magic, Inc, is a fun program that places an animated cat on your desktop for you to play with.

• 1.0
• II

BodyWorks (1991) 5 Reference DOS Windows

BodyWorks, from Software Marketing Corp, is an interactive computerized human anatomy reference for DOS and Windows. It is an informal educational/multimedia product targeted at home users.

• 3.0
• 4.0
• 5.0
• Classic

Microsoft Cinemania (1994) 4 Reference Windows MacOS

Microsoft Cinemania is a reference application that was released by Microsoft that was a database of films that contained still images, sound clips, dialogues, sound tracks and some full motion video clips. The software was released annually until 1997, with the last version being Cinemania 97. Think of this as an early IMDB, but without the internet part.

• 1994
• 97

AUTOMAP (1992) 4 Reference Windows

AUTOMAP is a computerized US roadmap from NextBase that shows major US roads. It can plot travel routs, and displays various regional information.

• 1.x

Xmas for Windows (1994) 4 Novelty Windows

What better way to celebrate the winter solstice than to give someone the gift of an ugly Windows 3.1 color scheme, annoying backgrounds, and looping MIDI music that will make you want to rip your ears off of your head? Xmas for Windows, from Sygenex, gives you all of that as well as themed system icons, a screen saver, and several themed games. it does contain the usual religious based Xmas musics and some graphics.

• 3.0
• 8.0

Microsoft Musical Instruments (1994) 4 Reference Novelty Windows

Microsoft Musical Instruments is a multimedia CD ROM encyclopedia of musical instruments from around the world. Part of the Microsoft Home family of multimedia products.

• 1.x

Calendar Creator Plus (1990) 3 Novelty PIM Windows

Calendar Creator Plus from Vermont Creative Software/Power Up, and later Spinnaker Software, is a tool for creating printed calendars with different styles and custom lists of events.

• 2.0 (Win)
• 4.0 (Win)
• 5.0 (Win)
• 7.0 (Win)

Microsoft 500 Nations (1995) 3 Reference Windows

Multimedia software from the Microsoft Home series providing reference material relating to the North American Indians. The actor Kevin Costner also appears in it.

• 1

Windows Personal Librarian (1988) 3 Reference Database Windows

Windows Personal Librarian is a CD database application for Microsoft Windows 2. It installs fine in a VM, but seems to need some additional configuration after that, but there are no instructions. This is likely a "client" tool meant only to display databases created elsewhere.

• 1

Microsoft Creative Writer (1994) 3 Word Processor Novelty Windows MacOS

Microsoft Creative Writer is a dumbed down Microsoft BOB-like word processor and sign maker targeted at children. It was sold alongside, and later bundled with, a drawing program called Microsoft Fine Artist

• 1.x
• 2.x

Johnny Castaway Screen Saver (1992) 2 Novelty Windows

Johnny Castaway Screen Saver from Sierra.

• 1.x

Microsoft Ancient Lands (1994) 2 Reference Novelty Windows

Multimedia software from the Microsoft Home series providing reference material of the ancient Roman, Greek, and Egyptian civilizations. Runs on Windows 3.1 or later.

• 1.0

VoiceType (1997) 2 Utility Novelty Windows

VoiceType is a voice dictation and speech recognition program from IBM. Compared to other products, VoiceType was considered fairly fast and accurate, but required several hours of "training" to achieve that. It was aimed at a fairly niche voice dictation market.

• 3.x
• Simply Speaking 3.x

Microsoft SoundBits (1992) 2 Novelty Windows

Microsoft SoundBits is a Windows 3.1 program that adds a variety of annoying sounds to actions such as opening a program, or minimizing a window. Because multimedia! It comes in three different flavors: Hanna-Barbera, Hollywood Movies, and Musical Sounds.

• 1.0